


Habits and History

by crookperkdeck



Category: PAYDAY (Video Games)
Genre: Brief mention of prison nightmare hcs, Found family sibling stuff, Mentions of familial death, No Romance, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 10:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookperkdeck/pseuds/crookperkdeck
Summary: Hoxton pays Clover a visit in a pensive afternoon.





	Habits and History

              Couch surfing, amongst many other things, had become an unfortunate habit of Hoxton’s ever since breaking out of prison. He didn’t have a lot of options for housing since the repossession of his apartment after his arrest, and someone with a face featured on the news as much as his had ran into difficulties renting a new one, with how chatty landlords could be. The laundromat serving as the gang’s current safehouse was the closest to a home he had, but after almost 4 months of being cooped up there, his relationship with it had become complicated, to say the least. So in the moments when being there for so long were close to making him consider property destruction, he knew he had to suck up his pride and go to someone in the crew for a night’s sleep.

              At least, those were the usual circumstances. Today was a special case.

              He had decided on going to Clover for it. She was at her apartment much more often than the safehouse these days, on the claim of being busy, when Hoxton knew she wanted to avoid interacting with people who were just a rung above strangers for her. It’s what made him ultimately decide on her—the quiet would be easier on his mind, and she wouldn’t dream of kicking his ass on the street.

              He arrived at her doorstep without any prior warning, relying on her dependability more than anything else.

              Pajamas and all, she followed through, and gave him permission to stay. It had been late afternoon, but she claimed she was only then heading off to bed. He didn’t know how long she’d been awake to warrant that, and when she tried insisting on staying up to play host, he rejected it and told her he’d still be here when she woke up. She at least acquiesced to that, and if that was the extent of her protests, she really did need the rest.

              And maybe it was for the best, unfortunately. Hoxton preferred having a conversation as a distraction over being alone with his thoughts, but simply suppressing them the entire day hadn’t seemed to quiet them any. In the past, he could’ve gone walking into the night with no clear direction, the constant change in scenery aiding him to think of other things. Now, he had been advised to not go anywhere the gang didn’t know about, at least until the news around him died properly, but those places were limited and made him feel antsy and agitated. He had broken out so he wouldn’t have to feel confined anymore, and now seeing lost opportunity rather than impossible opportunity felt worse, somehow.

              If not walking, he had plenty of time to fall back into a habit that he _had_ been able to keep both within and without prison. He borrowed one of Clover’s ashtrays from her living room and took it outside to her balcony, where he found a comfortable place to open a pack of cigarettes and chain them, half-watching the activity of the street below him. They would have to be his change of scenery, as little activity as there was since the day was winding down.

              Lighting a cigarette, and feeling the heat of it on his fingers was usually grounding, especially in contrast to the cold outside. It was easy for smoking to have become a comfort item for him—it dulled all of his senses and enveloped him only in the smell, and taste of it. Soon enough, it would feel as if the smoke rose to his brain, too, and would dull the activity there, too.

              It wasn’t the case now. He felt himself going through the pack too fast, in a way that was too unsatisfying. His mouth got drier the more he went on, and it gave the smoke ease to go into the back of his throat and choke him. The buzz in his brain that had been present all day went to his fingers and made them start to shake, enough that he had to rest his wrists on the railing in case he lost the ability to keep a proper hold on the cigarette.

              It was absurd to him for his thoughts to get this bad. Agitation crawled into his head and made it ache, and he felt himself falling into old emotions he had buried from years ago. He was lost again, lost in a wave of guilt, and hopelessness, and weakness. These were feelings that should be staying in the past, _deserved_ to be there, not now, and certainly not when he was in someone else’s home—

              A knock at the balcony’s glass door startled him out of his thoughts, and it was a miracle his cigarette stayed in his grip. He turned and saw Clover there, this time with a blanket hugged around her, already pushing the door open to invite herself outside.

              “I couldn’t sleep,” she claimed, and walked over to stand beside him. The presence of another human being gave a hard, temporary shove away from his thoughts, but they still laid on his chest, threatening to crush him again.

              Her statement was also a familiar one to him. It gave him some comfort, in all the ways he had heard the same thing repeated before, years in the past when heisting was just the two of them. An echo of a memory came to him, where she would sit under meager light going over the details of their next score over and over until she finally tuckered herself out. Remembering it gave him enough energy to pass a smile, however small, at her now.

              “Too worried I’m gonna start destroying your things?” he asked, masking his actual mood with humor and hoping it wasn’t obvious. “I was just starting to think I should have a go at the railing after I finished this, you came just in time.”

              “Anything you do my apartment will be double to you,” she responded, having a quick answer even in that obvious tiredness. She glanced over at him, more observant now, and he saw her eyes connect with the cigarette, and then the ashtray. “Inheriting the habit from Dallas?”

              Hoxton had always been a smoker, that was obvious, but only on very certain occasions would he reach this level. He was surprised she remembered that about him.

              “Maybe I inherited it from you. You didn’t bother cleaning this out any, seemed you were having some deep thoughts the past few days,” he said, gesturing towards the ashtray. If he could get her to talk about herself, maybe he could distract himself.

              “Is that what you’re here doing?” Fuck. But not if she deflected it back at him.

              “ _I’m_ not getting my night’s sleep at 4 in the afternoon. I’ve got to pass the time doing something, don’t I?” he took a drag of the cigarette, partially for emphasis and partially because talking made the taste leave his mouth.

              “It’s 6. Have you been doing this the whole time; not bothering to check the clock?”

              “What?” he asked, incredulous. Two hours couldn’t have gone by like that.

              Clover glanced more carefully at him before elaborating. “I tried sleeping for an hour, turned on the TV before realizing there was fuckall on, then went and had some coffee and saw you were still standing out here. I was going to give you some space, but you didn’t even react to the lights coming on.”

              In his shock, he had to take a long pause to think of an answer. “Maybe I’m busy thinking of the next great novel.”

              “Yeah? Who’s the protagonist? A 30-something year-old twat who’s taken to mysteriously lose time while he’s stepping out for a smoke?”

              “If it’s the next great novel, I’m not going to spoil it, love.”

              Clover frowned at him, which was never a good sign. She was unsatisfied with his answers. “Hoxton, if you came all the way here, and there’s something on your mind, you should talk about it,” she said, and then considered her own response. “You don’t have to, but you should.”

              He sighed. In all accounts it sounded like a bad idea, but he guessed he had some sort of obligation if she was willing to stand with him and try to comfort him about it. She was the type of person who would be willing to do that even if he had gone and stubbed his toe. She’d just be laughing at him the entire time, if that was the case.

              “You might not remember it, but I’ve mentioned it once before,” he said. He was much more vague with the reasoning back then, and she was a little pushier about it, probably not expecting what it could be about. She seemed a little more prepared now. “Today’s the same day my brother died. Maybe I shouldn’t be giving it this much thought, since I’m the only surviving Hoxworth left, but he’s probably the only one that fucking counted out of the lot.”

              He saw concern on her face, and looked ahead to avoid it, attending to the cigarette. “This is the 16th anniversary of it. He’d be about your age, now.”

              It was probably too heavy to bring up. Even after these months, they were still familiarizing themselves with each other, trying to notice the things that had changed after not being in contact for so long. He didn’t like talking about these sorts of topics either, but he could admit she knew things, past things, that he still hadn’t brought up with anyone in recent days. Maybe that made her the best person for it. Even if family was something they seemed keen on avoiding, any other time.

              “So it was a younger brother, then?” Clover asked. Her voice was quieter, and more hollow.

              “Yeah. After this long you’d think I’d let it go, but this is the first time celebrating,” he used the word loosely, “since getting out of Hazelton. Feels different, now.”

              And, after this long, he could still hear the last conversations he and his brother had shared. To think he been called “the toughest of us”. Recalling the phrase just made him have that same, lost feeling that only a death like that could bring. He could admit he _was_ the toughest of his brothers, but they’d laugh at him now if they saw how pathetic he looked now, dwelling in the past.

              At least Clover wasn’t laughing. “You shouldn’t keep trying to let it go. Long as you still have the memories, you’ll keep wanting to go back; fix something else every time. But when you’re that young, you couldn’t’ve realized caring for someone goes downhill so fast.”

              He wasn’t expecting her to have so many choice words on it. “Sounds like you know about it all better than I do. Thought I was supposed to be the one teaching you everything.”

              “To be a teacher, you have to actually be good at teaching,” she joked. “I remember you being pretty shoddy at it.”

              That got a pseudo-insulted laugh out of him, and she smiled in response. “I remember having a student that liked to talk back a lot; made teaching her a little fucking difficult,” he said.

              She kept smiling, not saying anything, and took to leaning on the railing. He used the opportunity to finish his cigarette and stab it out in the ashtray, noticing that the urge to light another was subdued, at least for the moment. When he finally pocketed the pack of them did she speak again.

              “Try not to stick to being alone anymore, Hoxxy. You’re just going to end up thinking about it more than you like and feel lonelier than before.”

              He felt like he hadn’t heard that nickname in forever. It made a warm, fond feeling settle in his chest. “Thanks for being willing enough to be my company, then,” he said, and was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I think if my brother was still around, he’d feel jealous having you here. See you as competition. Might not be much of one, though, he’s actually got some manners to him.”

              That earned him a friendly punch in the arm. “And when have you ever had any sense of manners?”

              “I’ve always had more than you, I can say that.”

              “Dickhead,” she said, shaking her head, but there seemed to be words still lingering in her. “Though…if you really need to talk to anyone, you know you can, right? I know the past has made things between us a great big shite, but I can still lend an ear. God knows what it’s like at the safehouse, but it’s not like all you got between you and the world is the ash you’re sucking up into your lungs.”

              He was shocked at how genuine she was being, in her own way. It was making him realize there was a lot that was unspoken between them, and he should’ve been making more of an effort towards it before. “The same goes for you. Just because you’re hiding yourself away when you do it doesn’t mean I’m not around for it.”

              “Maybe I don’t want to interrupt your ‘creative process’, now that you’re an ‘author’. I’ll be looking forward to _that_ going up in flames.”

              “Keep talking like that, and you’re not getting featured in the dedication page like I planned for you.”

              She laughed at that, in the ridiculousness of running with this joke, and he laughed with her, like he had done countless times years ago. It was familiar, and comforting, and he could feel his mind drifting away from the thoughts of his brother to all those memories he had stored being with her.

**Author's Note:**

> Holidays always push me towards finishing something, and today it's for National Sibling Day. I hope you liked it, and here's my tumblr if you want to see it there too: https://crookperkdeck.tumblr.com/ .


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